Every possible glimpse of hope for the end the end of one war It is always good news. However, the quality of peace that follows is an equally fundamental aspect. Not all the peace are the same and not all are right. If not fair, at least it shouldn’t be disastrous. In the case of Ukraine, the risk is evident: a peace built on the needs of the moment, dictated more by tiredness and geopolitical pressure than by a real strategic balance, could translate into a surrender masked by compromise. Because, net of each negotiation, a fact remains indisputable: Kiev is not an equal contractorbut an attacked country, to the street, forced to defend itself against an invasion.
The choice of Ukraine: strategy or constraint?
The recent back of the president Volodymyr Zelenskywith opening to a negotiation under the aegis of Donald Trump, raises more questions than certainties. Is this a choice dictated by a lucid strategic evaluation or, rather, of the only glimmer left to an increasingly isolated leader, with a worn -out army and international support in progressive weakening?
The question becomes even more complex if we consider another element: Europe, wrongly or reason, has not been perceived by Kiev as a sufficient guarantor of their safety. If Zelensky has chosen to rely on Washington rather than in Brussels, the message is unequivocal: The European Union, once again, proves to have neither the political weight nor military solidity To impose itself as a decisive actor in the global scenario. An admission of irrelevance that risks having consequences well beyond the Ukrainian crisis.
Peace or capitulation? The danger of an imposed solution
The greatest risk, in this context, is fall into the illusion that peaceas such, is always an absolute value, regardless of the conditions that determine it. The narrative that “whatever peace is better than war” may seem reassuring, but it is deceptive.
To understand the absurdity of this logic, it is resorted to a simple example: to imagine a family that is located its home occupied by criminals. The most obvious solution would restore legality and return the home to the legitimate owners. Or, in the name of the “pacification”, they could suggest them yielding a part of the house to the occupantsaccepting a new balance -based balance of force. Would it be a fair solution? I do not believe. Still, it is exactly what you risk proposing Ukraine: to accept a compromise dictated by tiredness, rather than a principle of justice.
To make the scenario even more problematic is the hypothesis, ventilated in the last few days, that the peace promoted by the United States is subject to economic concessionsin particular to the exploitation of Ukrainian mining resources. If this were the condition for the ceasefire, we would be faced not with a peace negotiation, but to a transfer of sovereignty masked by a diplomatic agreement.
A lesson for Europe: without defense, no credibility
The whole story highlights a lesson that Europe still struggles to metabolize: without a credible (and fearsome) defense policy, there is no true sovereignty. The idea that security can be guaranteed exclusively through the soft power and diplomacy It clashes with a brutal geopolitical reality: Peace is not negotiated from a position of weakness.
History teaches that international balances stand on the deterrence and military response ability. “You look pacem, para bellum“It is not an anachronistic motto, but an eternal rule in global power dynamics. Europewithout an autonomous and fragmented defense in its strategic choices, It is found today to undergo the decisions of othersrather than to determine them. Moreover, in a “European question”.
If there is a positive aspect in this crisis, it is the hope that the European Union finally takes awareness of its own strategic irrelevance. This diplomatic humiliation could and should represent the turning point to start the construction of a true European power, capable of defending one’s interests and establishing itself as an independent actor in the international scenario. The time of the choices has come and the wait is no longer an option.
But it remains a fundamental question, which defines our time and our idea of international justice: what the world we have become, if the person to be convincedwith good or bad, is the attacked and not the attacker?
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